Connected vehicles

Vehicles that drive themselves – and you – around city streets and urban sprawls are coming whether we like it or not, and Jaguar Land Rover has jumped into the development arena with Project Vector.

One of the benefits of driving a "connected" car is the ability to receive warnings of hazardous weather on the road ahead. Toyota is now looking at improving the accuracy of such warnings, by monitoring what vehicles' windshield wipers are up to.

A few years ago, the talk for vehicle communications, including vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure/grid (V2I/V2G) was all about Wi-Fi – to the point that the US regulators were considering saving a band for it. Now, Ford has gone all-in with 5G instead.

Toyota has announced that its Toyota and Lexus-branded vehicles will include vehicle to infrastructure technologies by 2021. The tech will be available in the US that year, and the company hopes to push communications standards for both vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V).

During the proceedings of a Connected Motorcycle Consortium conference in Munich, BMW introduced a R1200RS ConnectedRide. The prototype demonstrates the kind of inter-vehicle technology that is developed for the integration of two-wheelers in future connected transport systems.

As cars become more connected, a range of clever apps to interact with them has popped up. BMW offers up a clever personal assistant, and Volvo ​will let you lock your car using an Apple Watch. Now, Volkswagen will let you keep track of all servicing using the My Volkswagen app.

We need to know how autonomous cars deal with human-driven cars, because what makes sense to a driver doesn't necessarily make sense to a computer. A team from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne might have found a solution, developing an algorithm for self-driving cars to platoon in free-form

Microsoft is leading a group of technology companies that is showcasing its version of a connected, autonomous car experience at CES in Las Vegas.

Rand McNally's tablet-based OverDryve system adds voice-controlled navigation, connectivity, a dash cam and more to any dashboard.​

Ground has been broken on a new proving facility for connected and autonomous vehicles and mobility solutions. The American Center for Mobility is designed for research, education, testing, standards-convening, product development, validation and self-certification of future transportation tech.

While self-driving vehicles will be revolutionary, having self-driving vehicles communicate with one another and with road infrastructure will take that revolution to the Nth degree. In a UK-first, a cross-company collaborative demonstration of these technologies working together has taken place.

Between testing autonomous driving tech and unveiling a new line of electrified vehicles, Hyundai appears to be very much focused on the future. It has now announced what it calls a roadmap for connected car development, which involves R&D to change the way drivers interact with vehicles.